Why candies for me are forever sour

Artists from Bengal play dholaks at Vaishali Nagar Pujo pandal in Jaipur

Looking at the crimson pujo pandal (tent) lit up by hundreds of neon lights and the devotees’ banter, I wondered for a fleeting moment what ma (mother) would have felt on seeing Goddess Durga come alive in her ritualistic avatar invoked annually by Bengalis around this time of the year. She is no longer with us. Her passing away last year brought more guilt in our hearts than swamping us with a confounding desolation. One can bear the pain, but the guilt-trip is altogether a wretched experience: Hard to shed, easy to come by.  

Until today, I have had consciously avoided writing about her and have held back chronic urges to surf through her photographs to jog the loving memories that she had so benignly gifted me. The reason is simple. I couldn’t face her in her death. An iota of happiness that comes wandering my way these days seems laced with her sufferings that I couldn’t alleviate or found beyond my abilities to correct to a reasonable degree of self-contentment. I am, alas, forever incomplete in a way which tallest of achievements in post-script cannot measure up to the smallest of care that she could have been pampered with in her tireless, thankless life.

As a teen, I would fancy gifting her a room with a view in a swanky house with sprawling lawns to soothe her arthritic legs and feet. If my mother was heir to anything from my reluctant grandma, it was chronic arthritis. My mom would have to climb a flight of stairs in our rented house on first floor with a rickety leg in winters that would bend in an angle so deformed that she would have to drag herself like a living corpse. “A house on the ground floor,” I would always mumble to myself whenever I would find her walking that curse.

When I had first landed a job I would wish she would live to see the time when there would be, if not many, cars lined up with chauffeurs to drive her around. Till her dying day, she would adamantly refuse to take a cab and walk on foot a distance she would consider worthy of saving herself a few rupees and rid herself of the insecurities pounding in her head, even for a day. I would travel by the cabs, drive my car to editorial assignments, briefly reminding myself of the money that I had handed over to her for hiring an auto would instead go to mending some chapped corner of the home that we had no time to take care of.

But the one guilt that I have been nursing within has nothing to do with lofty ideals or grand dreams that choked on the deadline. It is but a subtle admonition that forbade my ma from expressing her love for her granddaughter while on our way back home that kills me from within. In her final days, she had this growing fondness for the three-year old.  She would cook lunch that the kid loved, play football with her and even read out stories to her. In fact, she was the one who introduced her to poems way before she had started school.

A few weeks before her passing away, she started accompanying me to drop and fetch the kid from school, a feat which she rarely undertook before owing to her engagements at home and her rickety legs and swollen fingers. One afternoon, she sneaked out and got some candies for the kid. I was until her death against the kid having toffees. So, my wife and my mom would slip in some without my knowledge to the kid. On our return trip that day, she tried feeding one of the candies to my daughter when I just stared into her eyes with an admonishing look in the rear-view mirror, which she caught just in time. She withdrew into a shell. Two days later, she was no more.

At the Pujo Pandal, I desperately wished she were standing by my side so I would hug her without warning, which I did sometimes when I would just fall in love with the woman who was so simple that she would kill herself to better other lives. She loved Pujos and would pester me and goad me to take some time out for her and take her to one. This was the first and one of the best Pujos I attended after her death. I looked around to hug her. There was no one. Somewhere, at some point of time she had withdrawn from my life. The candy, it seems, has forever soured for me. I wish I hadn’t seen in the mirror that day. Maybe my last memory of her would have at least been sadder, if not sweeter.

The superlative universe of a 4-yr-old

I should have written this earlier, having realised to my surprise and disappointment that there’s no breathing space in the mellowing of a 4-year-old’s mind. A few months back, when my daughter had just started understanding numbers, she devised an ingenious mechanism of defining the superlative.

On a balmy summer noon, the father-daughter duo was returning from the school. As a habit, we made a stop on our way home at the bakery. The school is a mile away from home and the bakery has become a notional midway for both of us to pick our favourites – a can of coke for me, and everything else for the Sweet Tooth. 

On this day, the hereditary doggedness of the Bose family came alive in her and despite my many refusals and public rebuke, she insisted on having chocolate with candy, arguing the latter would be a gift for the school teacher, which obviously was a red herring at best. 

My reluctance was superseded by some unforeseen pang of admiration for the little girl standing at the counter trying to balance herself on her dainty heels to steal a view of the candy-mix spread out in the showcase resting next to the cash counter. She had her way, eventually. “This one,” she said pointing to a pink candy. I picked two for her. This time it was the kid’s turn to be surprised.

On our way out, as she hopped like a bunny, her shoelaces matching the rise and fall of her petite frame on the staircase, I asked if she was happy. “Yes,” was the reply, with a giggle for a background score. She didn’t stop and navigated her way through the un-assorted pileup of vehicles outside the bakery. I asked again, “How much?” She stopped in her tracks. The bunny went quiet. The shoe laces dozed off. I must have pressed the power button somewhere on this animated doll in motion. “I am 100 happy!” she said. I asked, “What?” “Arre (Oh!) 100 as in 1 to 100, do you not understand,” she said switching back to the happy bunny mode.

The numeric classification of an emotion was a first for me. In hindsight, it was the most simple and effective means of driving home a point by a kid who has not yet known to deceive with an emotional masquerade. The number 100 became the superlative for her as it signified the end of the mathematical universe to her. It was supreme; the best and she just put it to amazing use outside her school workbook.   

Ever since, she has been merrily quantifying her emotions for us to know the intensity of her feelings. One Sunday night, she pulled her fluorescent red chair underneath the switchboard. With an instinctive gait she balanced herself on the chair to switch off the fan, a feat she pulls off without glitch. From the bed where my eyes followed the crashing sound and the thud thereafter, I could see my daughter in pain. She was holding back her tears as she continued to pleat her skirt in place. She quietly lifted the chair and replaced it in its place.

Tears rolled down her moist eyes when she saw my arms stretched out for her. She sobbed and she sobbed some more trying to catch her breath in between. I asked her if she was in pain. She pointed to her calf bone, which was peeled of its skin on one side. Does it hurt much? I asked. “Only 10,” she said.

It all came full circle yesterday when my kid came running to me and asked me for money out of the blue. She generally picks the loose change in my car and collects them in a gullak (piggy bank). Her idea of purchase is based on the denomination of a single rupee. One rupee can buy her a candy, a cake, a pair of shorts and why, even an airplane! So for ten rupees, she can buy ten things.

Since I am used to her collection of coins, I picked out a ten rupee note from my pocket – I am impatient with the wallet, so avoid using one – and handed it over to her. She checked out the number 10 on the note, ran out of the room and returned it to me saying, she wanted “big money”. Intrigued by her response, I took out a 100-rupee note and handed it over to her. “This is the big one,” I showed her the 100 inscribed on the note. She dashed out of the room and I followed her out to check what she was upto and found her taking instructions from her mom.

Expectedly, she came back, returned the note to me and asked if there was a bigger money than this? I asked how much was she thinking? Her puzzled look bore through me and I showed her a 500-rupee note. She checked it out and asked how big it was. “Worth five hundreds,” I replied and immediately regretted my words. She was already running to her mother.

I had just altered her superlative universe and shown her the money.     

   

When silence does the talking...

The tropical summer tiptoed through windows, its warmth skimming the room and its occupants who were catching up with old times. My friend Himanshu, a photojournalist, who had made himself available after a long time, was drinking in the surroundings with his glassy eyes trying to emphasize how they looked when he was here the last time.

Himanshu with my daughter Araina

I was by his side, but his glance jumped off my intruding presence, sprinted across the room and heeding the unannounced chuckle of my four-year-old daughter, followed her out of the bedroom. And, there it rested; at peace with itself.  

Now, Himanshu is one of a kind. Let’s say he is a hermit on the hunt (with a loaded camera). He’s a photo editor of an Indian daily, Hindustan Times, but quite unlike one. He is first a poet, prolific in both Hindi and in English. He trained himself as a pianist and a guitarist and can pale the professionals teeming in the best newsrooms with his incisive writing. Then of course, he’s the photographer, the third eye for thousands of readers waiting for the dawn to see again.

However, unlike most scribes baptized as editor, and who would instinctively scramble for the do-you-know-who-I-am sacrament, Himanshu is fiercely withdrawn. He opens up to books and music and sometimes to the ghosts from his past.

So, I baited him for a rendezvous by promising him what he covets the most: Getting lost in the world around him over a glass of spice-tea. Except this world, this perfect foil for his wandering mind would be invaded by a blithe presence. My four-year-old daughter had come in unannounced. She wafted into the room and stirred our senses before balancing herself on one foot and asking me if my company is ‘the Himanshu’?  She got her answer in my nodding head and was gone inside the room where she was hanging out with Dora, her animated friend.

From that moment on, I found something stir in Himanshu every time the kid would waltz into the living room. He was desperately attempting to get into a conversation with her. He once tried to engage her attention with his camera that rested in his side bag. For a child who casually swipes the mobile screen to take pictures at ease, Himanshu tried telling her the story of a camera so heavy that he needed help to carry it. “Will you not help me?” he asked her making an attempt to lift the bag, pulling a grimace on his bearded face. For a moment she was intrigued, but then skipped the invitation.

This happened for some time, Himanshu attempting an ambush of a conversation with the kid and his plan backfiring every time. By this time the tea had found its level halfway through the glass, where it waited for its seeker to draw it close to his lips once more. But the seeker had set out to seek something else and the tea would neither feel the rush of another fall, nor the whole new perspective of the room, which it discovers every time it settles to a new level in the glass.

For a brief moment we deliberated over each other’s writing, a path we often take in search of an engagement different from gathering news. His hands, presently, were holding the unfinished story of three characters brought to life by his company for a possible adaptation on the 70mm screen. We had barely managed to sift through a couple of disconnected scenes boxed atop one another when my companion broke the news softly. “My invitation has come!”

It took me sometime to gather the meaning of his words cooed to our acknowledgement. His eyes gave away the suspense. They were fixed on the Yamaha that lay unraveled at the wall we were facing. The synthesizer’s cover, a white linen handcrafted by my grandma, lay crumpled on the Divan besides it. The empty space in front of the ‘piano’ was now occupied by a stuffed bamboo stool. Everything else seemed unruffled.

I must have looked incredulously stupid to Himanshu trying to figure out how the sheet jumped off the synthesizer and how the stool walked up the instrument from its place by the dining table because he chose to end my predicament. “She switched on the synthesizer, removed its cover and was about to slip away when she started looking around. She brought the stool up to the Yamaha, navigating hurdles in her way,” Himanshu said romancing the instrument from distance. My daughter wasn’t around. She had disappeared after her act, leaving the stage to the visitor.  

“Were you watching her all along,” I asked. “No, we were talking,” he mumbled approaching the Yamaha, "She saw me in the eye after the seating arrangement was done. That's when I knew I was invited," Himanshu spoke without looking at me. He had already accepted the invite. 

Now, how does a child communicate with a stranger she has come to know through some forgotten banter between her parents? She just chooses a universal language to draw him into her world. Music to her was good enough to bond with a stranger who she knew also understood it well. The two of them never spoke. There was no need. When he started playing a popular kid’s song Lakdi ki Kathi, kathi pe ghoda she straddled her toy horse and started rocking on it by his side.

For Himanshu, defined by his casual admonition of anything loud, it was in silence that he ultimately got through his new friend, a friend who simply by readjusting the furniture conveyed to their mutual understanding, her wish, far more effortlessly than a smattering of some words. He accepted her invite to play without a word being exchanged. She never needed one to play besides him. Two different worlds had seamed beautifully to become a whole where silence was music and music, the language.

Finding a cursed kingdom not on Google map

While thinking of the Malaysian plane that still lies somewhere in the ocean hiding from humankind’s most advanced technology scrambled together in a rare collective pursuit, I was taken back to the eerie remains of an abandoned kingdom in Rajasthan. This kingdom, like the missing aircraft, awaits an exploration that tests both the technological marvel and human beliefs, a feat only mythical tales have managed to pull off.

Standing in the ruins of Timangarh with a brave bunch of adventurers. Notice
the rifle in the young man"s hand on the left and the spear in hermit's hand

I visited this place once on the insistence of my bureau chief. “Pack your bags for Timangarh,” he had said when I had walked up to him to call it a day. The only thing I had come to know about the cursed kingdom that now lies in swaths of ruins stretching over acres and acres of desolate hills was that it had death written all over it. And, that bit of information had come from the person who had given me the marching orders, the only one besides me who I can reasonably claim to have dared to visit a place where even the locals fear to tread.

Hell! This place is not even on the civic map. Even in this age, where at least three satellites are prying on your every movement (GPS for short), this place remains unexplored, warped in time and out of Google’s probing eye. For once, you would find Google and Wikipedia at loss of words to explain this modern-day mythology.

Part of the fear, which keeps people at bay, is rooted in its terrible past brought upon by the curse of a nautch girl betrayed by the king. Then there are the dacoits who have happily made this ghost town their abode for want of surveillance and utter disinterest on part of the district administration.

The Journey

We set off for the cursed kingdom, which we were told, rested in the middle of a forest some 40 km from Karauli. It was past noon when we reached Karauli, having covered the 150 miles from Jaipur in about 3 hours. Our local contact promptly refused to let us venture alone to the deserted Timangarh reminding us that it was an enchanted place way outside human habitation.  

In Karauli, people still munch on breakfast gossip about the latest killing by dacoits who abound in its forest ranges. Our friends who were an unlikely assortment of a local councillor, an ageing adventurer who came from a family of tremendous clout in Karauli, and a close aide of a tribal leader who represents them in the Parliament, pleaded with us to leave our car behind and jump into their Toyota Qualis, a half-bred SUV pulled out of circulation by its maker.  

Now, we had a flaming red air-conditioned sedan from the TATA stable and the. Qualis seemed to have had some rough years on it. So, we politely declined and told our hosts we would be glad to follow them. Reluctantly, they escorted us while our driver fought the onslaught of the rugged terrain underneath our cushioned ride.

“In a few hours it would be dark; you are going to a place where only wild animals, dacoits and ghosts reside,” the local councillor riding with us said.

So there are no tourists? “Tourists?” our imprudence bewildered him. “Even locals stay away from this place. The dacoits killed three traders yesterday and laid their bodies on the road someplace around here.” My photographer looked me in the eye. I wondered if he pictured the unrest within.

Some 30 km from the city, the habitations started thinning as the ravines started to engulf the entire landscape around the single stretch of dirt road leading to the lost kingdom.

“So what is it about the curse that ruined a thriving ancient town?”  We asked our escort. The local folklore has it that a beautiful nautch girl became so deft in ropewalking that the ruler of Timangarh challenged her to walk the tightrope across the breath of his palace. He promised her half the kingdom if she managed to return alive from the daring feat.

The nautch girl completed the course on one side and when she was on the return trip, the queen, fearing she would lose her kingdom to the lowly woman, asked the king to have the rope cut. Her wish was carried out and the nautch girl fell to her death. “But, before she died, she cursed the king that he would loose his kingdom and his fort would be in ruins,” the councillor told us.

The tale ends in the kingdom’s collapse, the population including the royal family having been wiped out by an unknown force. This can be best left to interpretation, wild or logical. Local historians claim that in a brief time, the mighty empire fell to multiple invasions in which the royal family was slain and people fled to safety. But all agree the curse had brought this fate on the kingdom.  

Our senses were still with the nautch girl when our car slowed down to an unscheduled halt. We looked up and found to our surprise that we were parked inside a police station. “Masalpur police station,” I mumbled to myself. Our Indiana Jones, the ageing Gajendra Bhardwaj, took charge of the situation and asked us to get inside the Qualis. “There is no road ahead, the car wouldn’t go,” he spoke with authority. While we snuggled in the backseat of Qualis, Bhardwaj had a brief but meaningful conversation with the Station House Officer. “He is telling the police officer to be on the lookout for us; a practice we follow whenever we go out there, just in case…” the councillor told us.

From then on the journey was killing; we were on a rocky terrain. Even inside the air-conditioned vehicle, our throats were drying up fast. The sun was beating down so hard that our lips were chapping with pain and had started to resemble the lifeless terrain outside.

After a few more miles of torturous drive, we were introduced to the heavenly sight of water. An entire lake of it! We were told it was Sagar. From a rough estimate one could put it twice the size of Jal Mahal in Jaipur. Water level was low, but I had never before seen an entire colony of lotus sprouting majestically from shallow depths of a natural lake formation. We gathered our breath and looked at the hills that surrounded the lake on all sides shielding it from outside world like a Harry Potter’s invisible cloak. 

There was only one way up from here, a narrow gorge that ran through one of the hills. We met a local Sarpanch (village headman) at Sagar. He seemed ready for battle. His son carried a well-greased rifle, while he himself brandished a heavy log. “We keep it for our protection; around here we have to fight dacoits; then there are hyenas and leopards,” he patted his weapon reassuringly. I wondered if it made us any more comfortable.

Up ahead in the mountains we reached the abode of a Sadhu (hermit) where we made our final halt. It was the only human abode we had come across in this part of Karauli. Much to our relief there was a working hand-pump. From here the trek was on foot. There were no more miles left to burn the rubber. The mobile networks that breathe down our neck in cities didn’t know the address around this place. Our little troop of adventurers was the only sign of human life for miles around. We had arrived at the world’s end!

The lost world

The ruins of Timangarh are spread over 9 km of mountains around Sagar. The massive enclosure of what must have been a sprawling kingdom loomed over us. We gaped at the pink sandstones placed over one another to have the fortifications raised around the palace.

Historically, the fort is believed to be from the 1,100 AD. There are inscriptions on temple pillars dating back to Vikram Samvat 1,200 (The Hindu Calendar) but locals attribute the date to the city’s reconstruction after it was plundered by Muslim invaders like Mohammad Ghori.

The hills seem to be littered with broken idols and the remains of what must be a truly magnificent city. Things were mostly built out of the Pink sandstone, which was to my understanding mined nearby. Some of the boulders are huge, life-sized, so they must have been dragged up from somewhere in the vicinity. Very few temples remain standing today, but a glimpse on the inside of their rooftops and the pillars reveal the painstaking artistry that was carried out to bring the stones to life. They reminded me of similar engravings inside the famous Dilwara temples on Abu Road, which from outside look like shabbily kept domes weathered by nature and time. But inside, they present the most unbelievable work of art on stone. The pain of an artist’s work remaining unrecognised is more acute than the labour that has gone into it to bring it to life. What a pity it is then to lose the Timangarh craft without it having found any patronage! Ironically, several smugglers air-lifted precious artefacts and idols from the Timangarh spoils and had it sold through auction houses in Europe and the US to make a fortune.  

The moment your eyes rest on the landscape you realise everything about Timangarh is huge. The entrance to the fort stands much like an epitaph in a graveyard telling about the lost glory of a once powerful kingdom. Broken idols and disfigured deities on the pillars tell us about the years of plundering that has not only desecrated the ramparts but history itself.

Our slow march came to a rest at a huge marketplace settled around a man-made lake in Timangarh. Yes. A man-made lake! The neatly lined up shops crafted out of stone slabs tell the story of a thriving trade in the region.

There are these three massive wells at the foothills. At a time when the government is finding it hard to provide drinking water, the wells built out of huge blocks of stones thousands of years ago, are carrying water. All the wells are interconnected to allow waters to flow through them. Our guide claimed there is an underground network of water tunnel that is still operational. “We hear the sound of water flowing even in summer when there are no rains,” he said walking around them.  

Rameshwar Sharma, a local born and bred in the Tarahati village is the only person who can show you around the area where sightings of wild animals are common. All our fellowmen were carrying huge sticks and were keeping an eye on the trees for wild cats. At one point we were all huddled with our backs to each other in an orb ready to attack an enemy stealthily closing up on us.

When I look back now, I realise I was the only one armed with a pen. Everyone had a weapon. The Sadhu who had accompanied us on our trek was carrying a well-crafted spear for protection. Even my photographer, the daring Suman Sarkar had a camera with a flash ready to shoot anyone leaping out from behind the nearest bush. And, I was the crouching scribe toying with a weapon mightier than sword.

Most of us happened to notice the movement at the same time. Far off, on the outline of the adjacent hill, a four-legged animal with a grotesquely-arched back made a momentary appearance. The young boy with the rifle was already aiming at it. For the briefest period and also the most anxious, there was only silence. The animal ambled away and we were happy speculating if it was a hyena or a leopard.  

Fortunately, we did not run into an ambush by any other wild animal or dacoits. As the sun started plunging into the neckline of the adjacent hills, our escort said it was time to move. “How much of Timangarh was left” We asked. “You have seen only a seventh of the entire ruins. But without water and light we cannot go far; we must fall back,” Rameshwar said. We all obeyed our commander and returned to Sagar before we set off for the city again. Young urchins goaded by our companions, much to my vocal displeasure, brought us fresh lotus from the lake. In our hands, they felt huge and quite stripped of their romantic appeal. As we rode back, the kingdom of Timangarh was lost on the hills.

Epilogue

We finally reached the police outpost where we were greeted by the officer sitting across the wooden desk. The relief was mutual. Never did I see a cop so happy at receiving civilians at police station. Our driver was asleep, his feet jutting out of the open gates of the car, which looked like two giant ears of the Buddha.

That’s when I decided to pop the question that was nagging me throughout. “Couldn’t we have covered the stretch up till the ruins by our car as well,” I lobbed the question to interrupt the banter. The cop spoke first. “The halt for your car was arranged in advance. They had called me. There is no restriction, as you speak, on driving in your own car past this point. But I wonder if you would have been sitting here with me chatting over a cup of tea, then,” he spoke with disdain or lack of passion or both.

It was then our guide Gajendra Bhardwaj spoke. “Sir, these ravines are teeming with dacoits. More than the ghosts, it is the dacoits who we fear. They would have spotted your flaming red car from miles ahead and you would have been a sitting duck for them. Our SUV, they recognise very well. So they would not put a gun to our head,” his words got to us slowly, painfully.

We got up to say our goodbyes. And thank them, we did. A hundred times.       

(This write-up never got carried in the special edition for which we were dispatched in first place. Our news editor said, “Sorry boss. No space.”)